Just out of curiousity, what health tests are important to your breed?

Although it was orignially thought that PRA was bred out of Cardigans, recently it's been discovered that some dogs are carriers and affected, so that's one test I'll definitely be doing although both parents were thought to be PRA clear by pedigree.

Degenerative myelopathy is another big one; orignally thought to be a problem in breeds like pembroke welsh corgis and german shepherds, we've also discovered that around 10% of our breed are affected.

Hip Dysplasia is somewhat common, although there is a debate over whether it does any good to get a dog OFA'd. Penn Hip's distraction index seems to be a more accurate indicator regarding whether a dog is actually dysplastic.

Interverterbral disk disease also rears its head, but really the only indicator that I'm aware of is to get the spine x-rayed to see whether calcifications appear between the ages of 1 and 3. I've been told those calcifications disappear about the time the dog's growth plates close, so apparently there is a window regarding that test.

Although there are probably other issues, in my opinion those are the really important ones to address in regards to health testing.

Heart is what I pay attention to most. DM is a big one as well. With boxers I don't really care so much about the other stuff, not that they're not important I'm just not as worried about them as I am about heart testing. Although I think any breeder that is going to do holter monitoring and DM testing is probably also going to do hips, thyroid, whatever as well.

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Juno 2009 :: Happy 2000 :: Lucy 2006 :: Cajun 2013